


The Pub on the Edge of Forever

by claritylore



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Audio Fix-It 03: The House of the Dead, Cybernetics, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Angst, Fix-It, Forced Regeneration (Doctor Who), Immortal Ianto Jones, Immortality, Love Confessions, M/M, Plot, Post-Audio 03: The House of the Dead, Post-Season/Series 03 Fix-It, Regeneration, The Void, Time Vortex (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29588298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claritylore/pseuds/claritylore
Summary: "I didn't think you'd be so real. I thought it would just look like you. I didn't dream it would actuallybeyou. She reached into time - she recreated you Ianto." - Jack HarknessTorchwood BBC Radio Drama, 'The House of the Dead' by James GossThat was the last time Jack saw Ianto, the fateful night that a being older than the universe itself restored him to life, and he sealed the Rift forever and saved the world. One last heroic act, and it was over. Or at least, that's what Jack thought.Here's what happened next.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	The Pub on the Edge of Forever

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally listened to some of the Torchwood post-show audios and, unexpectedly, here I am, writing a new fic for this show, 14 years since the last time I did. Unexpected indeed, but I just couldn't get let this plot bunny go unanswered. 
> 
> If it weren't obvious, this is based on the events of BBC audio episode 'The House of the Dead', which is free to listen to online [here](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012fqsz).

Her mouth is dry and sandy, the acrid scent of dust in the air drifting remorselessly. Gwen turns her head as she tries to find some moisture, anything to wet her parched lips. Her eyes flutter open slowly, sluggish and dry as well.

Although she doesn't know where she is, the sight of a familiar face at least settles her enough not to panic. "Ianto?" she groans, and forces herself to sit up, coughing a little. "What happened?"

He's sitting with his back to a bar, his suit dusty and torn, his face streaked with dirt. He has a half-drunk bottle of coca cola in his hand, but his eyes are faraway. At first she thinks he hasn't heard her, but then he leans forward and offers the bottle to her.

Gwen takes it, eager to wash the taste of dirt from her mouth with anything she can. As she drinks, she looks around, puzzled to discover that they are both in an empty pub, and one that has seen better days. The walls are full of loose bricks and covered in cracks, and most of the furniture is upturned. It's a mess, and so is she.

"You hit your head," Ianto says, unblinking. "It must hurt."

As he says it, she realises that, yes, her head does hurt a bit. She winces and presses a hand to her temple.

"What happened? Where are we?" she asks, as she hands the bottle back to him.

"What do you remember?"

Gwen thinks about it for a moment and all she has is a jumble of stray thoughts; Torchwood, Jack, Cardiff. Nothing more specific comes to her.

"We sealed the Rift finally," Ianto tells her, and he sounds impossibly tired for describing such a momentous event. "Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side when it happened."

"What?!" A chill of fear passes through her at the thought. "We're... not on earth?"

Ianto shakes his head, and then closes his eyes for a few moments, frowning. She regards him closely and decides that he must be shell-shocked. That makes sense, if what he's saying is true.

Gwen staggers to her feet and heads for the pub door, determined to see it for herself.

"You may want to-" Ianto says, but not fast enough to stop her.

She swings the door open and stands at the threshold, her breath stolen away at the sight of the vast emptiness beyond. There's no more than ten paces of gravelly brown earth outside before a sheer cliff edge out to a void of nothingness, illuminated only by a distant purple stitching of chaotic energy like a wound.

"-Brace yourself," she hears Ianto say behind her, lamely, and Gwen feels her legs start to give out.

*

"There must be a way. There must be!" Gwen says, taking her third walk around the perimeter of the cliff edge to nothing, upon which the pub is floating on an endless sea of darkness.

She stops and touches the invisible bubble keeping them inside again, watches it shimmer briefly before clearing again, and goes for another walk around.

Ianto sits on the verge beside the pub door, watching her silently, his eyes so dull and distant it's eerie.

Eventually, she stops raging and sits down beside him. There's really nothing else she can do.

"Are you hungry?" Ianto asks, and she can't place the strange tone behind his words.

Gwen shakes her head, and sighs. "I'm fine. Jack will come for us. He'll find a way," she says, with as much confidence as she can muster, given the circumstances.

Ianto says nothing. He just drains his bottle of coca cola and sits, silently, while a solitary tear tracks down his face, carving a path through the dirt on it.

*

The handful of small grey rocks and coal pieces taken from the pub cellar are full of energy from the Rift, he tells her. _In these stones, horizons sing._ With nothing more than these pebbles and a tiny detonator, just large enough to cause a bit of smoke, they had drawn together the energy needed to finally seal the gateway running through Cardiff once and for all.

As he describes the closing of the Rift, she finally starts to remember, seeing it in her mind eye; Jack, calling to them to come out before it's too late, and them stuck as everything converged and the door swung closed.

She remembered that she had wanted to make it out, had tried so hard... but she had been blasted back. Both of them had been pushed back together.

Now they're lost in a void of dead space. And they are the only ones there... will be the only ones there, _forever_.

It's an impossible thought, so for now, they make a plan.

They push the rocks and coals into three small glass bottles - the only ones that weren't smashed, a bottle of WKD, a vodka and a coca cola - and carry them out to the edge. Ianto can't make the bottles pass through the bubble, but Gwen refuses to take no for answer, and she fights it to push them out as hard as she can.

Together they watch the three bottles slowly flying away from them. With any luck, the momentum will take them all the way to the Rift in the distance, and hopefully they'll come back out somewhere the other side. While this Rift may not lead to Cardiff, it must lead somewhere, Ianto reasons, and it's possible that the energy in the stones will attract some interest.

Maybe someone will figure it out and come. Maybe.

Ianto asks again if Gwen is hungry, and she isn't. He nods, and returns inside. He disappears behind the bar, and then returns with a small green box in his hand.

"Fancy a game of darts?" he offers, surprising her with a smile; the first she seen from him. He opens it to reveal a well kept set, with a piece of chalk nestled in with the darts.

She notices, for the first time, that all of the blackboards in the pub have been scrubbed clean, despite everything else being covered in dust and grime; even the ones on either side of the dartboard.

That seems strange, but Ianto doesn't give her time to wonder about it. He starts the game immediately.

Gwen plays along. There's not much else to do anyway.

*

She doesn't understand why Ianto keeps needling her to do something.

What exactly does he think she can do about the situation? He suggests things that are impossible - 'We should move the pub closer to the Rift somehow?' _How?_ \- and when she has no suggestions, he goes and stands at the edge, staring out at the distant Rift with an unnerving expression on his face.

Gwen joins him, and he asks again, "Are you hungry?"

It irritates her that he keeps asking, but this time, she realises that, yes. "A little," she says, putting a hand on her stomach as it begins to tense.

Her reply causes Ianto to turn around and sit down. He buries his face in his hands and she's startled to hear him swallowing down heart wrenching sobs of despair.

Gwen kneels beside him, a hand on his shoulder, not sure what to say or what to do. She's about to try and give him some hope again; maybe the bottles will make it through, or maybe Jack will figure something out.

"There's no point in playing along anymore," he says, finally, and all the platitudes die on her lips.

"What do you mean love?"

The eyes that meet hers are cold, so cold, it startles her.

"You have the power to take me closer to that Rift over there," he tells her, angrily. "You just won't."

Gwen shakes her head. "Of course I don't." She finds herself backing away from him a little as he glares at her. "Ianto stop it, you're starting to scare me."

"I thought maybe playing along would help."

"I don't-"

A bitter chuckle escapes him as he rolls onto his back and stares upwards to nothing. "Oh stop it. You're not Gwen."

"What-"

"You're losing your mind, just as much as me, Syriath," he laughs, bitterly, and she recoils at the hysteria perched like a bird on the edge of his words. "Every time you drain me, and every time I come back to life, we just go a little more insane together. Look at you - you don't even remember why you started pretending to be her."

A pang of hunger unravels her mind. _Yes_ , she thinks, _of course. He cannot escape or I will hunger here alone._

"What has it been, a thousand times? More?" Ianto sighs, shaking his head. "I'm starting to forget things. I need to work harder to remember."

Syriath watches him, the visage of Gwen twisting away as she licks her dry lips.

"You aren't going hold me here forever," he promises, with more steel and nerve than he has any right to. "I'm going to find a way out."

Ianto holds his hand out, inviting her to get it over with; to let him reset. To try again next time.

Syriath takes her fill, as she always does.

*

Her mouth is dry and sandy, the acrid scent of dust in the air drifting remorselessly. Gwen turns her head as she tries to find some moisture, anything to wet her parched lips. Her eyes flutter open slowly, sluggish and dry as well.

Although she doesn't know where she is, the sight of a familiar face at least settles her enough not to panic. "Ianto?" she groans, and forces herself to sit up, coughing a little. "What happened?"

He's sitting with his back to a bar, his suit dusty and torn, his face streaked with dirt.

"You're injured Gwen," he says and he turns to her. She gasps at the odd shimmer of darkness to his eyes. "Look at all the blood on you. And the broken bones. You're in so much pain."

Gwen cries out, realising that he's right, blood on her hands, all over her body, her insides broken, the agony blinding.

After a moment, Ianto groans, his head turned. "Forget it. You're fine. No pain," he says, through gritted teeth, and he's shaking from head to toe like a leaf. "No pain."

Gwen gasps, realising there's nothing there after all. "How did you do-"

"You are what you eat," he says, and walks away.

*

"Can you see the silver threads?" Ianto asks. "Look, it's like a river."

Gwen squints until she can see it too, blinking hard. "I think I see it," she says. "What does it mean?"

"We're starting to move closer to the Rift," he tells her. "I'm sure of it. Keep watching. Concentrate. You can see it, can't you? I know you can."

As he speaks, she realises that she does, and the more she looks, the more vivid it appears. They really are starting to move closer. "What does this mean?"

"We're getting out," he says, and starts to laugh. It's infectious. They embrace, jumping up and down, laughing with relief.

They stay there together for a while, Ianto happily watching as they inch closer and closer to the Rift in space ahead.

Then Gwen starts to feel hungry and Ianto shuts down, his body stilling, his eyes going distant. She doesn't understand why, at first, until she does.

She takes her fill of him, as she always does, though she does pause to wonder why he is making it so easy now. Why he almost seems to welcome it.

*

"We can't go any closer or this building will come apart!" she tells him, angrily. "The atmospheric bubble won't hold!"

The purplish energy, raging with blue tendrils, casts strange colours and shadows over the House of the Dead, but even through this haze, Syriath can see what he has stolen from her in the dark rings of his eyes.

They are too merged now. Even more than the old hunger that was her companion for eons, she fears this separation. She cannot pass through the Rift, not like this; only he can, but he will not return if he does. It is an impossible thought, to hunger forever, with no Rift to earth there to allow her to feed.

Syriath can sense his desperation, though. She can feel it as if it's her own. In her mind, she can hear him pleading with her to just let him die, even though he knows perfectly well that it is beyond her reach now to choose that for him.

Neither of them have chosen this outcome.

She remembers how the convergence created a surge of power that almost allowed her to pass through to earth. Not just the crossing of ley lines, the eons-old Rift energies from the rocks surging, and Mrs Wintergreen's welcome, but also the presence of the universe's infinite battery, Captain Jack Harkness too. With him coming into the faultline, there was so much energy, she had seen out into all of time and space in a moment, and because of that she had also seen the outcome of her escape; she knew that he would stop her.

There was only one permutation that would change this. She knew she had to use the convergence to reach through time itself to pull together a living, breathing creature, every atom and fragment captured in their best moment and brought back together; her perfect lure.

Syriath remembered the delight of seeing how it worked perfectly. The Captain had agreed the bargain, as he would never have otherwise. He had been ready to set her free, to leave and run away with his prize and never look back. She had almost made it out, free to feed and absorb energy in the beautiful time-matter dimension forever.

Ianto only had himself to blame for this. He had been the one who tricked Jack into running out without him, sending him away and, instead, trapping them in the void together. They could have all been free.

"Maybe I don't need to escape," he says, finally, and she listens with curiosity, always surprised when the small parts of him that are still yet to be drained move him to do something unexpected. Though rarer now than ever, there is still some essential human spark there that he guards, jealously, from her, even now. "Maybe I just need to be close enough."

"Close enough for what?" she asks.

He stares into the Rift deeply, roving sparks of energy visible in his eyes. "All the universe is a bottle," he mutters, and she can feel the way he extends through her, stretching the large haze of her true form, taking control through her. "I must send clues," he murmurs, pushing hard to make it so, harder than she likes, defying her warnings to stop. "I must become the horizon's song."

Once again, they collide, explode and reset together. Another piece of her is gone when she wakes.

*

Before the burning energy of this faultline between dimensions, Ianto stands in silhouette, the darkness around him both his shield and his weapon.

When he'd first fallen through, he had been terrified of it, the endless void around him. Now he understands it, he knows it can be his salvation.

He stares and stares, unmoving, with patience beyond the boundaries of the mortality which he has long since shed.

Even though there is no time in the void, he knows now that the reason he perceives it when Syriath does not is that he has brought it in with him.

On the other side, he can see what he needs at last; this is what he has been watching and waiting for. It was inevitable that sooner or later, the Doctor's TARDIS would find this Rift opening, and stop to refuel where all the dimensions of the universe converge. It is opening the way to the time vortex that powers it.

The pub's roof has shorn away already, brick by brick, and with the bubble failing too, they are being released off into the void, where they will crumble. More of the pub will follow, he knows. Time is the most destructive force in the universe, and cruel in every dimension it exists within.

It's all breaking apart and nothing will be left in the end and he is the one causing this, by being where he shouldn't be, bringing that spark of time which sustains him into a place that it does not belong in.

But it doesn't matter. This is it. The TARDIS is in place. Ianto knows that its presence there will tip the balance of energies, open the way, and give him what he needs.

All he needs to do is reach.

_Reach... reach out... reach out and sing..._

Before him, in the Rift, time swirls as it is drawn together through the vortex and absorbed into the ship. He can see it, almost too bright against the black void he has become accustomed to.

"I take the words and join them," he says, and the one final bottle that has made it this far without shattering - the others are lost - is grasped within energy tendrils. Just as Syriath pushed them through the sheath before, so he forces that same power to push it out through the Rift, and even though she is still fighting against him and he knows that he can't hold her back forever, he's doing it.

_In these stones, horizons sing_ , he thinks, and the song is all his. It is a hopeful one, and not even the void can silence it.

*

Every hundred years or after losing one of the important ones, Jack allows himself the rations of a precious memory. He hasn't kept everyone he's met along the way; he couldn't manage it, even if he tried. But just a few, the most precious loves of his life, he has been able to capture in a moment, and that tiny fragment has been preserved in his wristband as a memorial.

The faces do blur with age in his own memory, even the names sometimes, but by allowing this indulgence, he can at least keep them alive, just as they were, in some form across the endless lifespan that he cannot escape.

It has been two hundred years since he left 21st century Earth and Torchwood, and on this anniversary, he will allow himself to open one of his most precious captures for the second time only since it was taken.

Ianto Jones had been asleep, unaware of the 3D scan capturing over him, but Jack hadn't been able to resist; he'd been breathtaking with the light of the moon streaming in over him, a faint smile on his lips, his hair mussed where Jack's fingers had roamed. Jack had never wanted to forget the feeling he'd had in that moment, standing at the foot of the bed, completely overwhelmed with an affection so deep, so complex he couldn't even name it, child as he was then compared to now.

He remembers that Ianto had awoken halfway through the recording, had looked at him and... what? He can't remember. He wants to know.

His plans have been slightly delayed, though, because the usually reliable alien bar he had been planning to pick up an imported earth drink from has shut early. The owner had closed the door on him, with a strange look, and told him, "I am never to open." And that was that.

Jack had moved on and found an alternative from a nearby store, though it was only a replica and wouldn't taste anywhere near the same. It would have to do. He had at least found a reasonably empty park with a view of the ocean to sit and gather his thoughts first. Even after these years, he does know for certain that Ianto's eyes had been the exact same shade of the ocean of the bay they used to walk along sometimes. No matter how blurry the other details get, he always thinks of that when he sees oceans, even ones which are the wrong colour.

An old man bumps into him, knocking the bottle of faux-coffee from his hand, causing it to smash on the ground.

"I apologise, not to offend," the man burbles, and seeing that he is drunk, and probably a vagrant, Jack holds off from yelling at him. It clearly wasn't intentional, frustrating though it is.

"Never mind. Anywhere around here I can get a proper drink?" he asks, with a sigh.

"It answers not to one," the man replies, strangely, and puts a hand to his throat, as if he's confused by his own words. "I- I- I-" he chokes.

"Are you alright?" Jack asks, not quite sure what he's seeing.

He shakes his head, fervently. "Impossible argument now tumbling out... just out near exit stranger," the man says, vaguely, and then stumbles away looking spooked.

Jack watches him go, confused, not sure where he was trying to direct him. In the end, he shrugs it off and decides he's going to have make do with the bottle of thria he has stashed back at the hotel.

He heads back, morose, wishing he had a way to make this more special. Not that a space haven rest spot is ever all that special, but this is all he can manage for the moment. All he wants is some alone time, to see a special moment again, and recapture a feeling. That's all.

Jack downs as much of the smokey thria as he can straight from the bottle, and stands at the foot of the hotel bed. It's dark, and the twin moons outside bathe everything in blue when he commands the lights to switch off, and it's actually just right in the end.

He activates his wristband and watches the 3D image flicker and appear in front of him, overlaid on the bed, almost clear enough to be real. Over and over, Ianto Jones slowly sighs awake, turns to him and smiles, serenely, his exposed hip bone catching the light, and without a word spoken he extends his hand out to Jack, inviting him back to bed.

That was it, Jack remembers now. He reached for him... and it takes his breath away to remember the moment. Jack smiles, seeing the trust in his eyes, and the love, but it is a wistful smile, because he remembers how hard it had been, being afraid to reach back, knowing he could never let himself truly fall. It couldn't last, no matter how much he wanted it to.

This memory is a reminder though that, despite the inevitable pain of separation, it had been worth it. So worth it, to be loved like that. And maybe he would find it again, one day. For now, he just wants to remember Ianto. He lets the feeling of how he'd felt then wash over him, treasuring it.

Eventually, he knows he must turn it off again; lock him away, another one hundred years of parting. Jack has to turn around to do it and face away from the bed. No matter the reward of bringing his ghosts to life again for a few short hours, the price never goes away. It always ends, sooner or later. It always hurts.

"I'm still here Jack," he hears a soft voice - Ianto's voice, that Welsh lilt - for the first time in centuries.

It has to be in his mind but Jack spins around anyway with surprise, and he is certain that the 3D image lingers there for just a moment longer than before, Ianto's hand extended towards him, his expression more serious, before it suddenly fritzes out with an ominous pop.

A warning flashes up on his wristband and he swears repeatedly as he tries to get it back, only to find that the file is corrupted. It won't come back. He's lost him.

*

Jack knows it's going to be hard to locate someone with the expertise to fix his wristband outside of the Time Agency, and he certainly can't call in any favours there. It can be repaired but not many have the tools, and those that do are likely to be dangerous types, peddling tech they probably have no right to.

But he has no choice. He can't let Ianto down like this; not again.

Jack decides to check out early and go chase some leads on that instead. He's about done with this resort stay anyway.

At the reception desk of the hotel, he lingers, waiting for someone he can return his key to and claim a credit refund.

"Say, do you know if the bar is open yet?" he asks when someone finally comes, thinking he should probably pick up another bottle of thria for the road. Chances are he's going to need some fortification.

The young girl shrugs. "I am not the organiser," she replies, and a strange, almost surprised expression comes over her face, her hand moving to touch her throat.

Jack is distracted when returning his key gains him a note, apparently couriered in and left with reception to hand over to him as soon as possible.

His insides lurch before he's read anything, because he recognises the shimmering look of time-locked ink immediately.

All there is, is a set of time-space coordinates, and a signature line.

Jack takes off without another word.

*

It's supposed to be a quiet excursion, all companions safely left at home for a bit while the Doctor allows the TARDIS some time to rest up from their adventures and refuel.

Rifts appear like slowly moving cracks across space and time, where the tectonic plates between dimensions collide. So it's useful to discover one hidden away in a nebula like this, away from any planets or people for once. Restful seeming, even.

The Doctor settles in with a book and a nice pot of booleon tea, enjoying the contented hum of her ship as it replenishes itself undisturbed.

But then a loud and inconspicuous hollow thump on the door surprises her, just as she moves to put her feet up.

She checks the central console and finds no warnings about a collision from the TARDIS. A quick scan tells her that it was something very small. Tiny, in fact.

The Doctor swings the door open and leans out just far enough to grab the object now gently hovering outside, like an uncertain guest.

"Tch, when will people learn to recycle," she says to no one in particular, bemused to discover that it's a glass bottle with a coca cola label; obviously a refugee from earth.

Something dark inside it catches her eye and and Doctor taps at the bottle, watching the bits of rock floating about inside, strangely.

Returning inside, she pulls out her sonic screwdriver and gives her discovery a quick scan. She is bemused to find that the fragments of rock and coal inside are not only from earth, but very specifically traceable to the ancient rocks beneath Cardiff, due to the saturation of Rift energies.

"Hmm, what shall I do with you? Shouldn't really pick up bits of old junk. Could get very cluttered around here." She shakes the bottle a bit, amused by the gentle tinkles made by the rocks inside, as if it's responding. "Oh sorry, very rude of me. As junk goes, you're perfectly alright looking. Alright alright, you've made your case, you can stay. Just a little while anyway."

The Doctor sits back down and leaves the space junk on the table beside her tea pot. She pours a fresh cup out and puts her feet up, determined to relax, taking a purposeful sip and then opening up her book again. But before she can read a single line, she puts it aside and sits up in a rush.

"Of course!" she exclaims suddenly, the idea coming out from nowhere. "You're a message in a bottle, aren't you? Well now that I think about it, that's obvious! So, Cardiff. This is Torchwood litter is it?"

She reaches for the bottle again, but the TARDIS suddenly lurches, and the bottle tips from the side table and hits the floor. It's not enough to shatter it, but the neck breaks off, and all the bits of slate grey rock and black coal spill out. The Doctor's next remark dies on her lips as she notices dark tendrils of smoke suddenly pouring out of them, like some octopus released and flexing its arms. It can be only one thing. _  
_

_Void matter_ , she thinks, immediately alarmed.

The TARDIS discolours where they touch, and although the Doctor backs away, one of the tendrils leaps up through the air and hits her before she knows what's going on.

It steals the breath from her and she hears the TARDIS whirring, fighting against the unnatural infiltration as it spreads around the large crystal mound at its centre, smothering its usual orange glow. It shouldn't be possible, she knows. It's against all the laws of the dimensions, and for the two most contrary creations - time and void - to come together in this way could be catastrophic. She knows this, but yet she cannot move to stop it.

It's all around her, choking her, pushing its way into her body even before she realises. It's thrashing about, severing her connection from the time vortex within; breaking her apart. All of a sudden, her entire form is trying to snap apart, but what is coming out of her is not the bright golden light of Time Lord regenerations, but something else entirely.

This is no natural regeneration, and she fights it with everything she has. It feels wrong, very wrong, but it won't let her go.

With every last bit of strength, she crawls up o the console and activates Emergency Protocol Theta, causing the TARDIS to wrench itself free of the Rift and jump into a tunnel through time and space, making a desperate dash before it's too late.

She feels herself fracturing before she even finds out if they make it.

*

Jack is surprised to discover that the moon rock he has been directed to, Theta, is a quarantine outpost, where victims of the fallout of intergalactic wars since time immemorial have gone to be purged of deadly viruses and the like. That, or to be disposed of safely.

It's manned mostly by cybernetics and he has to go through a whole barrage of screenings and tests to even be allowed to set foot in the facility. After passing through it all without any issues, a Medical Scientist from the flaxion colonies comes to meet him and says, "Infinite arrivals, now time over."

Jack smiles politely, not understanding.

"In action, notable trust opens," he continues, and stops, shaking his head.

After another attempt to say something, which comes out silently, he hurries away, leaving one of the cybernetic guides to take Jack through instead. Jack already knows something is wrong... everyone's been doing this to him lately, speaking in five word near-nonsense sentences, but he's been too focused on the invitation to focus on this.

There'll be time to figure out what is going on with that later. For now, he needs to find the Doctor.

It's been over a hundred years since they last saw each other, at least for him, but linear lines mean nothing when it comes to the Time Lord so Jack doesn't expect it to be the same for her. Nor does he take it personally.

He doesn't mind the reason; just knows that whatever it is must be serious for her to have summoned him, of all people, and via space telegraph of all things.

The TARDIS has been placed inside some sort of containment field in a large white dome, and he's shocked to see it; though it's still the same old police phone box, the vibrant blue is gone, leaving nothing but a chalky black, sickly-looking exterior.

The cybernetic attendants announce him and the TARDIS door swings open in response. He wants to get closer, but the forcefield barrier stops him.

"Doctor?" he calls, uncertainly. "I got here as fast as I could."

There's no response, though something tells him that he has been heard.

"It answers not to one," one of the cybernetics says.

"There! There it is again!" comes a voice from inside the TARDIS; familiar somehow, even though it is not the female voice he expected.

"Hearing what?"

"Cyberdoc, say something else!"

After a pause, the cybernetic guide says. "I am not talking otherwise."

The Doctor finally comes out of the TARDIS and comes up to the barrier, standing there in a plain blue medical overall. "Can you hear that pattern? They've been doing it ever since I got here."

Jack recoils as the Doctor comes into the light. "Wh- what?" he breathes, utterly stunned at the visage suddenly presented to him.

"I keep hearing sentences in five words, same starting letters," the Doctor repeats, not initially noticing his reaction as he steps forward towards the forcefield between them. "Except you don't seem to be affected, which is a small mercy I suppose-" He stops as he finally notices the way Jack has gone pale, backing away from the barrier like he's seen a ghost. "What?"

"W-why..." Jack stutters, shaking his head.

"Oh. The face. Yes, new regeneration," he explains, "Well, sort of. I'm not sure it's a real one though, it feels off... Just part of the puzzle. Something's doing this. I had to come here to make sure it wouldn't get any further that me and the TARDIS."

"No, why... _why_ do you have that face?"

"What's wrong with this face?"

"What kind of sick game is this?" Jack mutters. He can't focus, struggling to know what to think of what he's seeing. He's rarely been this shocked in all his life.

The Doctor straightens up, seeing the way it's affecting him, realising that his shock is sincere. "Who do I look like to you?" he asks, very carefully, eyes narrowed.

Jack almost can't bring himself to say it. "You look like someone I knew, a long time ago. Someone important to me."

"Let me guess, in 21st century Cardiff?" the Doctor asks.

Robbed of all ability to speak for the moment, Jack can only nod, and a long moment of silence passes between them.

"Who?" the Doctor presses.

"Ianto Jones," Jack says, sounding like it physically hurts him to say the name.

"Ah ha! That's it! I-A-N-T-O. That's the pattern."

"I don't understand," Jack says, unable to take his eyes off the unexpected mirage before him.

"I am now time's ocean," the cybernetic guide adds, unhelpfully.

"Not now-" the Captain snaps.

"No wait. Maybe it's part of whatever the message is meant to be." The Doctor bounces on his heels a few times, a bundle of excited energy again, just as he always was when he was on the case of some mystery. It doesn't suit that body or face at all, Jack thinks. "Say something else."

"I aim not to outstay," it adds, at his command, though it sounds strained. "Jack, only... need escape... Sorry."

The TARDIS shudders slightly, and Jack starts when he sees Ianto- no, _the Doctor_ \- shiver with it and fall back, as if fighting himself not to pass out. When the wave passes, the Doctor leans forward, hands on his knees, taking deep breaths to steady himself. Then he turns back to look at Jack, grimacing, and says, "I think you'd better tell me about this Ianto Jones."

Jack nods, even though he doesn't know where to start.

*

He has to truly dig very deep to talk about that period of his life, and it's harder than Jack expects it to be. He's spent too long burying his past to stay sane, and the details are now hazy because of it.

Jack remembers that Ianto Jones was one of the handful of survivors of the fall of Torchwood One, which he leads with because he knows that the Doctor will remember that well. Subsequently, he worked for Jack at Torchwood Three, he tells him. Jack can't bear to elaborate much more on the nature of their relationship, save to share that Ianto died at the hands of the 456 alien invasion... died in his arms. And that was that.

"That can't be all," the Doctor says. "There's more."

He shakes his head, because there's nothing... except then, he remembers. "Wait, there is one more thing..."

Jack finally tells the story of the last time he saw him; a story he hasn't shared with anyone else, ever.

At the mention of the name Syriath, of how she had been destroyed as she tried to escape through the Rift, the Doctor flinches back. "Oh no. Oh no no, this is bad. This is very bad."

He's seen the Doctor rattled before, but not quite like this. "Why. What's happening?"

The Doctor disappears inside the TARDIS for a moment, and then returns with a half broken glass coke bottle containing a handful of black and grey rocks, which he holds up for Jack to see. Unmistakably something from earth.

"This is what caused all this. The rocks are from Cardiff."

A cold chill goes down Jack's spine.

"I knew there must be a connection to Torchwood, to you. Now, are you certain, absolutely _certain_ , that your Ianto Jones was brought back for real by Syriath, not as an illusion?" the Doctor asks, with a great deal of intensity.

Jack nodded, firmly. "It was him. Flesh and blood, heartbeat, everything. She reconstructed him. He seemed like he was displaced from time. Pulled through somehow... I don't know." His eyes are shining with unexpressed tears at the memory of that; how Ianto had been there, warm and solid, and how he'd thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, he had him back.

"Hmm. And Ianto Jones used that singular event of convergence to seal the Rift off, using these rocks and stones saturated with energies to do it. All very neat, yes. But Captain, Syriath can't be destroyed, it's not possible. All you did was seal her out, back into her void... and my guess is, your friend must have fallen through with her."

"Fallen thr...? Oh my god." Jack's mind momentarily whites out at the thought of it. He'd been certain, so completely certain that destroying the Rift at the moment she came out of it would kill her. It had never even occured to him that she might have simply been pushed back out... that maybe Ianto... "What does this mean, Doctor? Wait. Could- _could he be alive_?"

The Doctor sighs, heavily, and then does a curious spin around with his hands twirling in the air. "Right. Welcome to Time Lord school, where we learn all about all the nasty old beings that predate everything we know and understand. Who's this one?" He mimes turning the pages of an imaginary book. "Ah yes, Syriath. Well, she is the mother of the void, so far as we know. Think of her as a contrary power to the time vortex; a living infinite empty space, that sucks in all the energy it can. She exists in one of the dimensions that Rifts can tie into. I was refuelling at one such tear when this happened."

"And there I thought she was just a death feeder, luring humans to her with the spirits of the dead."

"She's an illusionist alright. No doubt she's been doing that, with the Rift to earth acting as a nice little buffet and all. The old girl developed a taste for the peculiar miseries of mankind long ago. It's her nature to eat energy, to absorb it and make it part of her, which is, incidently, how she projects her so-called 'spirits', with a little psychic chicanery. Bringing someone back to life, now that's a new trick, but possible if she had enough of a feast to mess with time I suppose. We're all just floaty bits of energy in the end really."

"Alright," Jack said, a bit frustrated and feeling unsettled by hearing that voice, that over-animated imitation of Ianto's voice, bouncing around and using inflections in ways he never ever would have. "I just want to know if Ianto's alive? Could he still be there... waiting?"

"In action, notable trust opens," the cybernetic unit supplies.

The Doctor holds up the broken bottle again to make a point. "Quite. And I'd say that's the only explanation. This message in a bottle was obviously meant for you, Captain. Why else would this face - Welsh, very Welsh isn't it, I mean I like it but, anyway - why else would this face come along with it? Now I know who it belongs to, I suppose they must have come to some arrangement. Now it's causing ripple effects across the universe. Even a few fragments of the void getting out can act like a plague to my kind. Give it an inch, it'll eat up a whole universe eventually."

"A plague?" he asks, alarmed. "How bad is it? Can these people help you?"

"It's not something that can be cured, just contained. If we're lucky. It's already choking off the TARDIS' core like tar. She'll end up a giant paperweight before long, and as for me, well, same probably." He paused, an odd flutter of some dark thought passing over his features. "Funny, after all this time... to face mortality. I thought it'd happen somewhere greener."

Again, the TARDIS shudders, and the Doctor writhes with it. This time he falls to the floor.

"Doctor?" Jack gasps, frantically, and winces as the forcefield barrier zaps his hands when he tries to push through it.

"I aim not to outstay. Jack, only need escape. Sorry," the Doctor says, as if the words are being forced out of him without his permission, and then he passes out.

*

No matter how much he tries to imagine it, Jack can't. His mind goes blank. He knows that he was wrong to go to the House of the Dead that night, so long ago, hoping to see Ianto again one last time. He should have cleared his mind and stayed strong - not given Syriath a way to break him like that, but he'd been weak.

The moment she'd told him he could leave with Ianto, alive and warm in his arms, his fall from grace had been inevitable. Jack had pleaded with the 456, tried to trade the world for Ianto's life then too, and it hadn't worked then, so it had almost felt like his due.

Ianto had had to be strong enough for the both of them in the end, tricking him into leaving without him, saving the world himself one last time.

Even back then, in the aftermath of that night, Jack hadn't been able to dwell on the thought that Ianto had actually been alive again. It was too overwhelming to imagine that he had done that to Ianto; called him back to life only to let him die again.

So he'd put it from his mind and focused instead on getting as far away from earth, and all its ghosts, as fast as he could.

Now he doesn't know what to think. His mind keeps leading him down the path to unpleasant memories, of that time he'd spent two thousand years spent buried alive, trapped in a hovering state between life and death. If Ianto is in a void dimension, is it like that for him, Jack wonders? Is he alive in a real sense, or simply frozen there, lingering, unaware?

He hopes the latter is true, but he already knows in his gut that it isn't. There is some kind of communication happening. He is trying to escape.

But Ianto can't know the possible repercussions, Jack thinks. If he remembers nothing else, he remembers that Ianto Jones would never put the whole universe in danger just for his own life.

_For someone he loves, he would,_ his mind unhelpfully warns, and a dark trickle of memory over a certain cyberwoman in the basement of his Torchwood hub flitters by. He'd actually forgotten about that until now.

He remembers though that he still has one small fragment of him left... and that maybe there is a way to speak to him, though he has no idea what to say if it works.

Jack returns to the biodome containing the Doctor and the TARDIS. Though the Doctor looks worse for wear, lying back on a gurney while one of the cybernetic doctors puts him through some tests, Jack shouts across to him. "Can you fix my wristband?"

The bewildered look the Doctor gives him is surprisingly Ianto-like. "Little busy to be playing mechanic, Captain."

"I might have a way to reach him," he clarifies, and waits for the penny to drop.

*

Jack has signed at least twenty separate documents relinquishing his right of departure if he contracts any sort of void-related diseases. He barely looks as he signs it all, too eager to get going and get inside the containment field. They operate on a system of trust when it comes to tech, so if needs be, he can still get out.

The Doctor has worked his magic with the sonic screwdriver and seems fairly certain his wristband should be in good order again, but Jack pauses over activating it for a long time. He feels very exposed suddenly, like he's sharing a secret that he shouldn't even have. It feels wrong to show this moment to anyone else.

But there is no choice. He casts it towards an empty space inside the very deathly-looking TARDIS and the 3D holograph generates the clip for him; a mussed bed, Ianto Jones sleeping peacefully in the moonlight.

"I really do have his face. Oh that is so weird," the Doctor groans, thinking of certain companions. "I'm glad none of the kids are here right now. I'd never live this down."

The recreation wakes up, turns, smiles and reaches for him, as always, and Jack wants to reach back now, as he couldn't quite bring himself to back then. As he does, he finds himself falling forwards in the moment, as if it's really happening. "Please Jack," he hears Ianto pleading in the hollow well of his mind as he reaches. "I'm at the Rift. I just need you to reach me..."

He reaches his hand forward as far as he can, and it's like his arm is stretching out beyond all recognition, the space expanding into a vast infinity, and all he wants to do is close the gap and grab that distant hand.

Jack jumps as the image fritzes out again, and it feels like he's falling and just landed on his feet, shakily. He turns to the Doctor, muttering that the damned thing needs to be fixed again, only to halt still when he realises that the Doctor is holding his sonic screwdriver again, with a look so intense that it scares him. He has cut the image intentionally.

"Why did you do that?" Jack asks, dumbfounded. "I was reaching him!"

"It was drawing in the void matter somehow... it looked like it was trying to suck you in." He slowly puts the device back into his pocket, but the serious expression on his face does not disappear.

"We need to return to the Rift," Jack tells him. "Get me close enough. I will go in and get him out, and all of this will stop."

But the Doctor is still staring at him, his eyes razor sharp. "No, this is wrong. All of this." The Doctor grimaces again suddenly, leaning against his wingback chair to catch his breath, and he waves his hand to warn Jack off as he moves to try and help. "This is Syriath's doing. You said it before, she lured you in with him. This... this has to be her again."

Jack reacts as if he's just been punched. "No. It's him. I can tell."

"Oh yeah? How?"

There's nothing he can say that will be persuasive; no logical reason he can possibly use in this situation. "I can just... I can feel it," he says, finding no other words to explain it. "I'm not just going to leave him there, Doctor!"

"Captain-"

"I know you like to seal people off in parallel dimensions, but I don't." Jack regrets it as soon as he says it. Even if it's true, it's not really fair to bring it up as a weapon, the way the Doctor had lost Rose. Cruel really. "Look, we can do this. I know we can."

The Doctor shakes his head, sparing no pity for him at all it seemed. "I can't risk this getting out. The damage it could cause... No, I have to stay here in quarantine. No other option. I'm sorry."

Jack stares at him, coldly, not seeing a beloved face; instead seeing the outline shape of the man who left him behind too once. But then he eases off. It doesn't matter; he probably doesn't need the Doctor to get there, now that his wristband is back in working order. "All I need are the coordinates," he says.

The request is met with an oily, crawling silence. "No."

"I need to try."

"No."

"Please Doctor-"

The TARDIS shudders so hard, Jack is almost knocked from his feet, and the Doctor writhes on the floor again, ripples of unnatural dark energy crawling over him.

"If aviation needed... trust optional," he gasps, suddenly, and crawls to the console, deft fingers moving over the ailing system like a pianist. "Nnnno," he grunts, and shivers, but whatever has him pushes past it, and he continues.

Jack lingers back, watching, not sure what to do as the sound of sirens erupt from outside, and an automated warning system warns that such actions will cause a containment breach. Though it doesn't feel exactly good to do it, Jack goes and closes the door, blocking the sound out.

"We have stop it- we have to-" the Doctor gasps, and then grunts angrily as he is forced into pulling the activation level.

The ship phases out of the facility and goes into a shaky, swirling flight.

As much as he wants to help the Doctor fight it somehow, Jack is willing to take the risk on this. This is for Ianto, after all.

The moment the ship stills, Jack stumbles away into the TARDIS corridors to find supplies.

This has just become a rescue operation, and he's going to be ready.

*

Her mouth is dry and sandy, the acrid scent of dust in the air drifting remorselessly. Gwen turns her head as she tries to find some moisture, anything to wet her parched lips. Her eyes flutter open slowly, sluggish and dry as well.

Although she doesn't know where she is, the sight of a familiar face at least settles her enough not to panic. "Ianto?" she groans, and tries to sit up, coughing a little. But she can't move. "What happened?" Her hands, they're old, she realises... ancient, practically bones.

Ianto kneels over her and lifts her gently into his arms. "I've heard it said that, when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Gently, he kisses her on the forehead, and she feels her bones crumbling. "Once upon a time, you just existed. Your greed for the energy of human suffering is what led you to try and escape through the Rift. But I understand what happened now... you went too far when you used Jack's energy to pull me out of time, because time is one thing that can defeat you. You ate a seed and the tree has grown through you. You've have absorbed so much of me, you poisoned yourself Syriath. And guess what. Now... _I'm_ hungry."

"You... c-can't..." she gasps.

"I take only what you have stolen. When I leave, you will return to what you were before the universe was formed. You will grow quiet in your isolation." Ianto smiles, like a predator. "There will be no pain or hunger. Just a timeless eternity. It's kinder than you deserve."

He places a hand on her chest, just as she always did to feed, and turns it back upon her. Because for all that she has absorbed him to the very last fragment, so too has he absorbed her; all the power that she has taken, the breath of every human ever tormented into feeding her through her manifestations, it's within him now.

All that grief and sorrow takes his breath away, but it's the hope that almost crushes him. That had been her greatest weapon once; she would promise to return the dead, show stolen glimpses of treasured mortals stolen from the victim's memories, and feast.

As the manifestation of Syriath's developed consciousness finally crumbles away into dust, Ianto takes a moment to compose himself. He reminds himself of his name, of who he was, because in that knowledge lies something far more important.

Ianto returns to what's left of the cliff edge of the half demolished pub's small slice of earth, and waits, staring into the purple storm of the Rift opening, knowing that it won't be long now. His suit is torn to shreds, he's been covered in dust for what feels like a thousand years or more, but he's still standing.

Still waiting.

Waiting and...

He can see Jack before Jack can see him. Ianto watches him recklessly throw himself out of the TARDIS, a rope around his waist, a protective helmet on his head and a jetpack on his back, that unmistakable greatcoat streaming behind him like a cape.

Ianto's heart swells at the sight of him. He knew he would come. But his joy is not for himself; he hasn't done this just to escape. The risk to the fabric of the universe would not have been worth that. No, in the end, he has done this because of what he has learned... about Jack himself.

About how he can be fixed.

*

Jack has gone through Rifts tears and portals before, but never out in space like this, and never one so large and unstable. For a good half a minute, he thinks he isn't going to make it through, that he's going to just run out of rope and it'll all be over.

But then he sees it... a floating rock with the wreckage of an old Welsh pub standing on it, hovering out just beyond the threshold. And there, standing just in front of it, is a man in a suit. Ianto Jones; the most improbable sight he's ever seen, and one he'll never forget no matter how long he lives.

He's coming in as fast as he can, reaching forward, desperate to reach him, but Jack can feel the rope around his middle starting to strain and pull him back. It's not going to be enough. _Damn it!_

Ianto backs up and makes a running leap forward, hands thrust forward like he's diving into an ocean, causing some sort of barrier to split apart as he penetrates it. Jack's heart lurches with the uncertainty as to whether he can survive in the void space outside of that protective bubble, whatever it was.

He reaches out, as hard as he can, but he still feels the rope pulling back too hard.

Stubbornly, he unties it completely from his waist and lets it go. With only the jetpack controls, he pushes himself forward in fits and spurts, just far enough to catch Ianto in a bear hug.

There's no time for relief or a reunion. Jack wrestles with the jet pack controls to spin them around as fast as he can and he launches back towards the Rift at full speed, chasing the tail end of the rope that the Doctor told him not to let go of, because the old jetpack was only half fuelled and would definitely burn out if he overused it.

It happens about halfway back through the Rift, but luckily Jack manages to grab the end of the rope just before it peters out, and then all there is to do is wait as they're reeled in.

Jack wants desperately to check on Ianto, but he has to concentrate to keep hold of both him and the rope, so he can't take the risk of moving too much. The wait is agonising though, as his minds churns through all sorts of terrible outcomes based on how long it's taking.

The TARDIS' atmospheric shield stretches to cradle them as soon as they're close enough though. Then, finally, Jack is able to push Ianto through the door and launch himself inside as well.

The Doctor is a shaking, sweaty mess, one hand on the turn wheel that pulled the rope back inside. He hadn't been happy about doing it of course, but in the end, he'd agreed to help. He hadn't been given much of a choice, really.

Jack pops his helmet off and throws it aside. Ianto is motionless on the floor, looking almost the same as he had two hundred years ago, when Gwen had pulled back a body sheet, and Jack had been forced to look at him lying there, dead and empty.

For a solid heartbeat, he truly thinks the worst, but when he puts a hand on Ianto's chest, he finally wakes up and stares him with dazed, glassy eyes.

"Ianto?" Jack asks, suddenly very afraid of the answer.

Ianto blinks a few times, and then croaks, "Jack?"

Jack nods, wide eyed.

Ianto sits up and give him a strange, almost curious look. "I forgot," he breathes, and he touches his hand to Jack's face, as if he can't quite trust his eyes. "You're so handsome." The attempt to smile fails and his expression crumples.

There are tears on his cheeks, and Jack reaches for him, and the two men wrap around each other in a desperate hug, and Jack knows, _knows_ , it's him...

"I can't believe it," Jack chokes into his neck. "I just... I can't believe it's you."

"I'm so sorry," Ianto sobs. "I should have run out with you, never sealed that Rift. I was so stupid."

The bluish spotlights around the panels on the walls of the TARDIS whir bright suddenly before he can say anything, and the ship shudders, harder than ever, the engines making loud clanging, clunking noises.

That startles Ianto, and he pulls free of Jack to look around and see what is happening. "Oh no," he mutters, and wipes his face with his sleeve. "I'm sorry. This is my fault. I... I didn't know what else to do."

"What exactly _did_ you do?" the Doctor asks, through gritted teeth, still leaning on the turnwheel for the tow rope, clearly experiencing some pain.

Ianto stares at him a moment, this visage that is a mirror to his own, and closes his eyes as he breathes, "Doesn't matter. I can fix it."

"Oh no you don't." The Doctor slides away as Ianto tries to reach for him. "You- you- you- I don't even know what you are."

Ianto nods, not at all surprised by the reaction. "I know you have no reason to trust me. I really had no other option. If you'll just let me, I can get it out."

The challenge rising between them is unmistakable, and Jack is left looking back and forth between the two, so similar in appearance, yet so obviously different.

"Doctor?" Jack asks, confused by the stern exchange.

"I know what you're sensing, Doctor," Ianto says, softly, regretfully. "I'm not Syriath. She's reset... dormant." It's obvious Ianto doesn't want to elaborate, not with Jack there to hear it, but he knows he is going to have to. "I was trapped in the void with her, yes, and every time she absorbed me, I absorbed her right back. It was a long struggle, and I won. I took back everything she ever took, from me, from others, and more. And yes, I used void matter and the stones... I used them to force you to help me... I needed to escape. Whatever the cost."

"The cost?" the Doctor sneers. "Then you know the consequences of coming here-"

"Yes. I know."

"Wait wait, what?" Jack jumps in. "Will one of you explain what's going on to me, please?"

"It's like poison, the void," Ianto explains. "Time Lords know to stay away from it because it can suck in anything it crosses, including time itself. And thanks to Syriath, it's inside the stones... inside me. I used it. All of this is a symptom of the universe destabilising." He turns back to the Doctor, studiously ignored Jack's concern. "But I _can_ contain it... and then destroy it."

"That isn't possible," the Doctor hisses, angrily.

"Syriath didn't just snap into existence. The void is a mirror; and creation is the image in it. I don't know how else to explain it." Ianto scrubs at his face with his hand, and once again Jack is amazed that he is even holding it together, in his shredded suit, still covered in grime. Dozens and dozens of dormant memories have started to awaken in him, like switches flicking on, from a time when he had catalogued every flicker of those lips, every furrow of that brow. He can tell with absolute certainty that Ianto's nerves are far more frayed than he's letting on, and he also knows that to point it out would only cause him to glare. "Look, it's like the end point of a funnel that flips in the end to keep the balance maintained. Void and time, like magnets. The polarity can be accelerated to flip-"

"-With enough energy. And time. Ah. I understand the theory actually." The Time Lord tries to get up, but fails miserably.

Jack moves in and helps the Doctor to stand, and he begrudgingly accepts the help. The TARDIS shakes and grinds around them, as if she's starting to bend out of shape, and her ailing voice makes the Doctor wince. They all have to brace until the worst of it is passed.

"But you need to explain how you're doing this." He waves his hand in the air, vaguely. "I mean you're from Wales. You're human. How is it possible?"

Ianto hangs his head, and for a moment Jack thinks he's going to give up. "I'm surprised you can't sense it yet," he mutters, and looks up with a strange sort of sadness. "Syriath didn't just invade Jack's thoughts steal a blueprint, she literally syphoned me through time, like I was a bloody teabag. She used his energy as a catalyst. If Jack is a fixed point in time, as she said, the only explanation I have is that I've become secondary vertex. And Doctor, I was trapped there for a _very_ long time..."

Jack stares at him intently, a frightening suspicion washing over him, and Ianto avoids his eyes. _No, he can't be like me..._

"Alright then. Just do it," the Doctor agrees, finally.

"Last chance to keep that face," Ianto offers, lightly, as he steps forward.

"It's a damned good one," Jack adds, playing along for the moment. "I wouldn't mind-"

"Not. The time."

Ianto holds out his hands again and takes a deep breath. "It won't hurt. I won't let it."

The Doctor finally accepts his hands, and the moment the two join, there is an explosion of darkness in a cloud around them. Jack feels the Doctor slip away from him and the movement pushes him away from them both. Before he can turn to run back and help, Jack recoils as he is blinded by an explosion of brilliant golden light from within the cloud.

He watches as the blackness seems to fold in on itself and syphons into Ianto's back. Their hands slide apart and the Doctor slips, and when Jack moves in to catch the Time Lord, he is bemused to discover the figure in his arms is a woman again, but looks more like a child in the newly oversized medical overalls she is wearing. He shakes her, trying to wake her up, but there's no response.

"She'll be okay," Ianto assures him, his chest heaving for breath. "Just a shock to the system."

Jack lays the Doctor down, gently, and goes to Ianto. He tries to reach for him, but he pulls away. "Don't, I messed this up." Ianto keeps his head turned, as if ashamed of something, but Jack is in no mood for it. He grabs Ianto and pulls him in for a hug, despite his protest.

It's incredible to him how their bodies slot together again so perfectly, even after all this time.

"I don't care. It worked," Jack says, and he angles his face so his nose is pressed to Ianto's neck. It doesn't matter that he smells of dust and old wood, it's _him_.

"That was the easy part. Just cosmetic," Ianto sighs. "The TARDIS is going to be more difficult. The void matter is trying to eat into her core. If you hadn't have come so fast to get me, it could have gone critical. Still could." Ianto pulls away. "I need to help the ship before the damage is irreversible. Just, if anything... _happens..._ "

"Happens?"

After a moment of what appears to be quite intense thought, abruptly Ianto grabs Jack and kisses him, a hard press of lips and clashing teeth, with too much of an edge of desperation to it to make it really enjoyable. It only lasts a moment, but Jack feels the energy that sustains his life surge briefly at the contact, causing a sudden head rush.

Ianto rests his forehead against Jack's and tells him, "If I don't succeed, the only option will probably be to send me back there. I expect you to do the right thing."

"No, Ianto I won't-"

But Ianto pushes Jack away before he can protest, so hard he nearly falls over.

Ianto's eyes change colour, void-black darkness that has been absorbed bleeding into them, and the shock of it holds Jack's protests back. "Yes you will. Now hold onto the Doctor and don't let her go," Ianto warns, his voice suddenly huge and chasmic, and he gives Jack no more than a few seconds to obey before he steps up and put his hands onto the central console.

The process of draining all of the void matter out of the TARDIS causes an almost psychedelic experience, Jack bouncing around through twisted bits of dimensions, filled with colours and shapes, and older versions of the TARDIS' console room popping in and out. At some point, the Doctor groggily wakes up in his grip to the sight of the TARDIS twisting in the middle like water being wrung out of a towel, but she passes out again almost immediately.

There is a sudden moment of silence, like the eye of the storm has been reached. Then the headless glass bottle that was left on the side table completely crumbles into sand, and the air grows thick with dust, swirling unnaturally, overpowering. In the whirlwind din that erupts, Jack realises he can hear a voice, doubling, tripling almost, like a chorus, creating a mighty discord that hurts to hear. He pulls his greatcoat up and over both of them against the storm, and clings onto the bolting in the floor, legs braced, waiting for it to pass.

It finally ends in a slow whirring downwards, as the noise settles into an old familiar and far more gentle hum. Jack finally unearths them both from beneath the protective shield of his coat, and finds everything has grown calm again. A thin film of grey dust has settled everywhere, visible in the beams of light from the TARDIS columns, like they've stumbled into a place untouched for years. Otherwise, everything looks normal again. Jack can tell that the dark matter has been drained out.

The Doctor's eyelashes flutter open and she coughs a few times while he looks to check that she's alright. She blinks a few times, and then her eyes widen. She flips around and launches herself onto her feet, suddenly remembering everything.

Jack follows her as she hurries up to the central console, and he can tell by the way she laughs and then feels the long blonde strands of her hair that she is relieved beyond measure to find both herself and the TARDIS back to normal.

But Jack doesn't linger. He immediately searches around the console room, looking for Ianto. His breath hitches as he finds him down on the floor, lying next to one of the columns in a heap, like a ragdoll that has been flung and discarded.

"No no no no, he mutters as he runs to him. He turns him over and recoils to find him ashen and grey. Jack drags him into his arms, no time to be delicate, and kisses him as hard as he can, desperate to give him anything that might help wake him up again. "Come on, come on, don't do this to me, not again." Jack keeps trying but there is no surge inside, no tingling or swirling, and he can't make it do it. "No, you are not leaving me again Ianto Jones!" he growls, and shakes him angrily.

"Captain," the Doctor says, quietly, with an unacceptable tone of pity that he can't stand to hear. "Jack..."

"No! It doesn't end like this," Jack insists, and shouts at Ianto, " _Come on!_ " He kisses him hard again, willing it to work, and out of nowhere, he starts to feel the pull again. _Yes,_ he thinks, _yes that's it!_

Ianto twitches against him, his mouth opening into the kiss, and Jack keeps going, pushing with everything he can, even though he has no real idea of how it actually works. He keeps hold of him until the initial reflex movements have subsided, but when he pulls back from the kiss, expecting to see Ianto awake and aware, he can tell that he's not there. His eyes are still black, the darkness crawling over them, eerie to see so close up.

"Come on, fight it," Jack urges him on, cradling him. "Ianto if you can hear me, let me help. Take what you need. Take it all." He seals his mouth against Ianto's again, determined to give anything he can.

Distantly, he can hear the Doctor warning him that it's not working... that he needs to stop... that it's could very easily get into him too...

Then he can hear the sound of the console coming to life and the TARDIS lurches. He clings on, trying not to break the connection, feeling that his energy is making a difference, even if it's slower than he'd like.

The landing is hard and it separates them, and Jack takes a moment to check on him again. Ianto is clinging onto him too now, blinking rapidly, his chest heaving.

"Come on, you're doing it," Jack encourages him. "That's it."

The light changes and, distantly, he notices the sound of the TARDIS door opening. Jack ignores it though, too focused on Ianto to look.

"Captain Jack Harkness, please step back to allow engagement of quarantine measures," a robotic voice says, dispassionately.

Jack ignores it, far more interested in kissing Ianto again to try and help yet more. He isn't surprised that the Doctor has brought them back to Theta; in fact, he's grateful that she has been merciful, when the temptation to just send Ianto back through the Rift had to have been pretty compelling.

The robotic voice repeats its command and again, he ignores it, until he hears a hiss next to his ear and realises that he's been injected with something. Angrily he snaps around to protest, but the Doctor doesn't react at all to his protesting glare, and the cybernetic doctor doesn't have any facial expressions either way.

He fights it all the way but, in the end, there's nothing he can do but pass out, still clinging onto Ianto tightly.

*

His parting with the Doctor is what it always is; there's always a slight edge, all that water under the bridge rumbling, but neither of them actually ever address the tension. It's amiable enough, and they know they'll see each other again some time. There's no mystery to that.

With a clean bill of health all round, both Time Lord and TARDIS are given a pass to leave quarantine, and she seems to be eager to go pick up her companions and set off on some new adventures after spending a week there, getting bored with her book.

There's no question of him going with her; that's really not in question anymore, after everything. He jokes that he has a job to do - no one else can do it like he can - he says, making it sound totally lascivious, and the Doctor rolls her eyes. Then she bids him farewell and heads out, leaving them to it.

Ianto is making progress burning through that void matter and turning it into energy... with Jack's enthusiastic help. He's okay enough now to be rolling his eyes as well, every time Jack makes a joke or adds a pun about his 'very special medicine' and his 'medical prowess', though Ianto still tires easily and sleeps a lot, so Jack worries that he's not doing enough.

The Medical Scientist has been very interested in Jack's ability to transfer energy from the source of his immortality through the medium of mouth contact and saliva. After asking permission to test some alternate delivery methods which might provide a large enough dose to finally neutralise that last lingering bits of void matter in Ianto, Jack has an idea that he's keen to try.

"We need to have sex," he tells Ianto. "For science."

He fully expects Ianto to protest immediately, but instead he just smiles, fondly. "You don't have to con a bunch of cybernetic doctors into standing around us to persuade me to have sex with you."

"Maybe I like being watched," Jack says, with an appropriate waggle of his eyebrows.

Ianto laughs, and opens his arms out, inviting Jack to climb up onto his bed like he always does whilst administering his particular kind of medicine.

After a beat, Jack asks, "So was that a yes?"

"It's been so long, I'd take just about anything at this point."

Jack goes silent at that, and though he tries not to tense up thinking about it, he can't hide it. "How long?" he asks, quietly. "You haven't told me too much about it yet."

"A long time. Let's leave it at that." Ianto has no intention of ever telling him the truth, at least not intentionally. He might play him at darts some day, since he is probably now the universe's greatest player after several thousand games with not-Gwen, but he thinks that's the only clue he will ever intentionally give. Ianto kisses into Jack's hair as he settles against him, just grateful to be free of that purgatory. "With age comes wisdom though. There is something I want to tell you. I don't exactly know how you're going to react-"

"Will you die?" Jack pre-empts him, quickly, like he's been thinking about it a lot and has been afraid to ask. "One day, I mean. You said you're linked in to this thing that keeps bringing me back. So I just, I want to know-"

"I actually wanted to talk about you," Ianto deflects. "I know how, well... I know you've lived a long time and it's not easy. I didn't just come back for me. I had to if only to tell you, I know how to reverse it. If you want to."

"It's possible?" Jack asks, pushing up to look him directly in the eyes, an almost unbearable level of hope on show.

"I hope you don't want to, not just yet. I have memories stretching back from before the universe even came into being, thanks to you know who, and... I have answers for you that the Doctor didn't have." Ianto pauses, though he can see that Jack is hanging off his every word, because as much as he knows Jack needs to know this, it hurts him to say it; to think about a universe without Jack in it. "A fixed point in time is made when certain events shape the universe's natural flow of time to such an extent that everything would unravel if it isn't preserved. You were made when the path of your life was altered by someone using the time vortex to weave you into everything."

"Rose," Jack sighs.

"What she did can't be changed. But it can be... negotiated. There are ways to reach back. It's how I drew words together to try and clue you in. It's how I'm burning this void matter away, using that link to move it through time to a stage when it's just harmless energy. But it's not something I can just do on my own... it's more like a conversation. It's complicated to explain, but in the same way, if we combine forces it'll be possible to extricate your timeline, little by little. And eventually, when it's safe to, there are unnamed spatial existences that not even the Time Lords have discovered, far beyond the void or even the time vortex. We could plan ahead... make the choice to leave and be no more one day."

Jack lays his head on Ianto's shoulder for some time, thinking through what he's said. "You said 'we'," he points out, finally. "Ianto, I need you to say it out loud... are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I suppose I'll have to confront it eventually," Ianto sighs, realising that he's been trying to avoid confirming it because of how real it will feel when he does. "We're... also weaved. I can't die until you do." With that knowledge finally confessed, Ianto immediately flushes red in the cheeks, hating the immediate fear that crawls over him that Jack will recoil from the idea of being stuck with him around. "I know it's a lot and I don't want to presume anything-"

He is prevented from saying anything more as Jack kisses him so hard it's almost like he's trying to swallow him alive. Ianto lies back, knowing that this is hundreds of years of desperation and grief falling out, content to take as much of that burden from Jack as he can.

All of a sudden, Jack draws back and presses his face to Ianto's chest, huge heaving sobs hiccupping out of him apparently against his will. Ianto just wraps his arms around him and lets him get it out without comment, for as long as he needs.

When he does at last pull back, Jack's eyes are red and his nose is running, and he laughs at the wet patch he's left on Ianto's overalls. "Huh," he chuckles, and wipes his face with his sleeve. "This is less sexy than I was going for."

"Oh I don't know. I can work with it." Ianto proves it with another kiss, gentle and sweet. "Just tell me you're not... put off by all of this."

"No, I really don't mind being watched-"

"Not that." Ianto has had a long time to think about it, probably too long. It's terrifying as a concept if he dwells on it too long. "This... all of this. Me being like you. I don't want you to get... bored."

"Are you kidding?" Jack tells him, ardently. "I don't know how I got so lucky. I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend eternity with. Us together? That could never be boring."

That draws a genuine flush to Ianto's cheeks. "I feel the same," he says, and it's like a huge weight is lifting off his shoulders. He puts everything he is into showing Jack this with a deep, passionate kiss that he hopes will have Jack seeing all the stars they will outlive together.

A small swarm of cybermedics are rolling around the edges of the small biodome that has been provided for Ianto's recovery, chuntering amongst themselves as they bring in various bits of monitoring equipment. It's a little bit distracting, and they break apart laughing, the sheer humour of the situation not lost on either of them.

"So you were being serious then," Ianto says, shaking his head, fondly. "Don't tell me that flaxion scientist fellow came up with this treatment?"

"I may have put in a suggestion, just on the methodology," Jack confirms as he hops off the bed and starts unzipping his overalls, completely shameless, even though he's near enough naked underneath.

"Oh I see. Done this before have you?"

"Never, but I'm willing to try if you are," Jack says, with a faux-selfless shrug. "To my thinking, you just need a bigger burst of energy to burn out that last bit of void matter. This short, sharp, shock of it will hopefully do the trick."

"Not too short I hope."

"Oh no, I'm going to take my time with you." Jack throws the overalls aside and leans over to unzip Ianto's matching overalls, taking his time to enjoy the slow reveal of skin, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "I'm going to make you see stars."

"I know you will," Ianto says, and he doesn't just mean with this; he knows that he's going to see wonders with Jack, all of time and space out there, ready for discovery. It's exciting, now that he knows that they will be together. "Help me out of this."

Jack does, helping him out of the blue overalls and also taking his underwear away with it. He throws everything onto one of the cyberdocs, and then makes a show of removing his last bit of clothing, grinning.

"I'm think I'm ready for my treatment now," Ianto says, his voice husky.

He reaches his hand out to Jack, inviting him back into the bed, and wonders at the strange look of pain that passes across his face for a moment as he stands there, some distant memory holding him back. Not sure why, Ianto drops his hand and waits.

"I'm really not going to lose you again?" Jack asks, sounding strangely small and fearful. "I can't do that again."

"I'm yours, every last bit of me, for as long as you want me," Ianto assures him, breathless with emotion.

"Always," Jack snaps, almost before he's finished speaking; as if he can't bear for Ianto to think otherwise. "I'll always want you Ianto Jones. Anything else is torture. I've loved you for so long I can't even remember a time when I didn't. You have to know, this... this is it for me."

"Then let's not waste another moment," Ianto extends his hand again, smiling.

Finally, Jack is able to take his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic! If you did, comments are a surefire way to brighten my day. And if you don't have time for that, a Kudos only takes a second and is appreciated.
> 
> Got more time to read? I have more Jack/Ianto stories! From 2007:
> 
> Victorian Era Time Travel Love Story [24k, M] | [The Mirror in the Morgue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897986)  
> Time Travel Angst [12k, M] [mpreg] | [A Ray, Turned Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899570/)  
> Evil Twin Shenanigans [10k, E] | [Ifan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899729)  
> Dark AU Hurt/Comfort [12k, M] | [They're Still Killing Suzie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28898610)  
> Outsider POV Mystery [8k, M] | [Random Clocks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899876)  
> Mindbending Time Vortex Series [27k, G] | [The Aesop Fables Series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900332/chapters/70901193)  
> Sad AU Love Story [16k, E] | [One Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900824)  
> Light Porny Fun [6k, E] | [Symbiosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900989)  
> Collaboration Kid Series [75k, M] | [The Caerleon Series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140731)
> 
> And here are some new fics for 2021:
> 
> Jack Gets a Happy Ending [2k, G]: [What will become of us now (at the end of time)?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684646)  
> Eye Candy, Companion, Time Agent... Who is Ianto Jones? [48k, M]: [The Eight Lives of Ianto Jones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871159)


End file.
